Wednesday, May 19, 2004

one of my friends killed himself in highschool. he had some imbalances going on and he took his own life. are people who kill themselves held accountable for their actions? some people say that they were under such mental and emotional anguish that they should be held accountable. perhaps this is the case for some. i dunno. i haven't killed myself (obviously) so i don't know how it is. a full pardon seems to be a bit easy though. to me it seems that there is some selfishness involved with suicides. a parent leaving their children and loved ones behind. a teenager doing it for revenge. or someone who just didn't want to tough it up. again, i don't know what it's like. i'm sure it's different for everyone. i just think granting them all a full pardon for murdering themselves seems a bit too easy.

death penalty

beyond a few rare cases, the death penalty is morally wrong. just because someone has taken another's life gives us no right to take their life. jesus taught us to turn the other cheek. not to bitch-slap them right back.

but it's in the old testament! so are a lot of other laws that jesus did away with. he did away with an-eye-for-an-eye (which was actually a law concerning what the most could be done as punishment, not as a law on what to do) and replaced it with forgiveness and love.
it costs too much to hold them in prison for life! from my understanding and reading, because of the appeal process, it actually costs more to put a person to death than it does ot hold them in a life sentance. even if it did save money, since when has saving a buck been an excuse to kill someone. sounds a bit like what cain learned to make himself master mahan, the ability to kill for persona gain.

it deters crime! does the thought "i'll only get a life sentance instead of the death-penalty" ever cross the mind of someone before he kills someone? studies have shown that violent crimes increase in places where capital punishment is installed and decreases where it is stopped. rather than detering crime, capital punishment teaches a lesser value of the life of a person. it teaches that it's ok to kill.

what are the few cases? a few thousand years ago, there were no such things as maximum security prisons. today it is (for the most part) feasible to keep prisoners in a life sentance without endangering others. however, there are some, such as the dahmers, mcveighs, and (the fictional) lechters that our so dangerous that nobody is safe around them. these, i believe, can be subject to the death penalty. i also think that those who kill in attempts to escape incarceration could be subject to capital punishment.

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